Funds to build schools from the Australian Government went to Maute Family

Saturday, December 1, The Australian Aid (AusAID) agency, the main armed of the Australian government in providing international aid to other nations, was recently found out to have given money to a member of the Maute Family, the main actors that perpetrated the debacle of the infamous Marawi City Siege.

According to The Weekend Australia, a news agency based in Australia, their sources have learnt that Mohammad Khayam Maute, the eldest brother of the Maute Family, was contracted to build school facilities such as classrooms, science laboratories and school libraries in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) by a subcontractor, Habitat for Humanity, that was funded by the AusAID.

Mohammad Khayam Maute / Photo credits to the owner

In essence, the Australian Government may have indirectly sponsored the increase of the financial resources of a family that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State also known as ISIS, and is allegedly linked with the Jemmah Islamiah, the group responsible for the deadly Bali bombing.

The spokeswoman of the Foreign Minister of Australia Julie Bishop said that their department discovered the contracting of the said Maute family member last 2015 upon auditing the Habitat for humanity.

“It was revealed that Habitat for Humanity had contracted some of the classroom construction work to a local firm associated with the Maute family” she said.

The said contract was supposed to be a part of a bigger aid program that was originally a 12.7 million dollar project that started on 2012; the aimed of the said program was to provide assistance to the development of basic education programs in Muslim Mindanao through building classrooms in areas where they are significantly underdeveloped and disadvantaged.

Photo credits to the owner

The Maute Family was contracted through the construction company of Najiya Sultana Koran Maute, one of the wives of Mohammad Khayam.

Sources say that a picture from 2015 shows that Mohammad Khayam and his wife standing in front of the newly constructed classroom where they were with an Australian Government representative and local officials.

The Philippines military says all seven Maute brothers were killed in the Marawi conflict.